Guilty Pleasure:
Crash Test Dummies
God Shuffled His Feet
1993
Purging one's CD collection of undesirables is a therapeutic undertaking, a soul-cleansing endeavor and time-tested way to exorcise the demons of one's musical past. That's why, on a recent rainy day, I experienced a supreme catharsis kicking to the curb The Tragically Hip's Day for Night. An ex-roommate's handful of Moby and Darude bootlegs? Out with your electronic-polluted asses. Barenaked for the Holidays? Ride your barenaked sleigh to the city dump, Ed Robertson. Enya's A Day without Rain? I got a better idea, Enya: how about a day without taking up space between ELO and Sleepy John Estes? As for Crash Test Dummies' immortally absurd God Shuffled His Feet ... well, shuffle your feet to Recycle City, you weird-ass Canucks.
Only God Shuffled His Feet never made it there. Instead, it went straight into my car, where I listened to it repeatedly, laughing all the way. For safe keeping I even put it on my iPod. After all, how could I risk losing an album that raises such seminal questions as "How does a duck know what direction south is/ And how to tell his wife from all the other ducks?"
After achieving modest success north of the border with their 1991 debut The Ghost That Haunts Me, Crash Test Dummies burst onto the popular music scene with the single "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm," which would help propel God Shuffled His Feet to number nine on the U.S. charts and number two in the U.K. Listeners were equally confused, amused and intrigued by this track. First, there was singer Brad Roberts' ludicrously deep-throated voice, sounding at best like a constipated Johnny Cash. Then there was the song's unusual content, narrating the tales of a boy whose hair mysteriously turned bright white, a girl whose body was covered in birthmarks and a chagrined adolescent whose family attended a church whose congregation inexplicably "shook and lurched all over the church floor." Were these guys satirical or tragic, heartfelt philosophers or practitioners of subtle mockery? The song's video, featuring a near-cartoonish blend of pensive looking Dummies and the song's curious characters acting out their grievances onstage, did little to clear up the confusion.
God Shuffled His Feet is saturated with moments of utter inanity. Thinly veiled sexual references to "sampling from your bosom," "swimming in your ocean" and wondering "if my seed will find purchase in your soil" are equal parts corny and pretentious, making Roberts sound more like a 19th century hack romance novelist than an early 1990s alternative rocker. And why the repeated references to peoples' hair mysteriously changing color? Did Roberts suffer from a rare but debilitating phobia of waking up one day to find his flowing locks an undesirable shade of blue? Other puzzling images that reappear throughout the album's 12 songs include fingers and pajamas: the hallmark visuals of any timeless classic. The confounding "Afternoons & Coffeespoons" reflects on the inevitability life will present when youth fades into the golden years of a crash tester's life: "Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline/ Someday I'll wear pajamas in the daytime/ Afternoons will measured out/ measured with coffee spoons and T.S. Eliot." Right, T.S. Eliot. Because we all know how much old people like to sit around and read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to each other. How about the common folk, though, Brad? Anything for them? Not from these sophisticated Dummies, who instead croon about Genesis, Sartre, evolution and the awkwardness that transpires during a night on the town with your artist friends when you're lacking in the cultivated-remarks-regarding-high-art department. Don't we all hate it when that happens?
Epic shortcomings aside, God Shuffled His Feet doesn't deserve to be discarded like a copy of Nude on the Moon: The B-52's Anthology. Nearly every song is a sing-along with a peculiar but catchy chorus, and the supporting Dummies are more than adept musicians, showcasing a hodgepodge of guitars, pianos, accordions, keyboards, drums, harmonicas and mandolins that sustain the album's velocity and add a classical element to the album's rock-driven tonality. The multi-tasking Ellen Reid is an ideal backup singer, providing a sharp contrast to Roberts and adding a welcome vocal layer to several tracks. Couple the band's upbeat musical inclinations with cameo appearances by UFOs, sinister maidens, knight-mauling tigers, tormented psychics and bug-eating cavemen, and listeners are in store for 45 minutes of fantasy galore, completely void of ennui.
Despite his inability to conjure anything better than a humming sound for the chorus of the band's biggest hit, Roberts' lyrics can be surprisingly clever, his ponderings both whimsical ("Sometimes when I lie awake I hear the rainfall on my tent fly /I think of all the insects that are sleeping/ And wonder if the animals are dreaming") and direct ("Running into you like this without warning/ Is like catching a sniff of tequila in the morning"). Other songs are equally charming. The title track is a genuine treat, depicting a sort of half-assed standoff between God and man, as both parties clear their throats nervously and shuffle their feet, sizing each other up but saying little. "In the Days of the Caveman" is a lighthearted examination of man's evolution; "The Psychic" presents a world-weary soothsayer whose visions haunt her; "Two Knights and Maidens," perhaps the album's finest track, is a colorful narrative about murderous maidens who deceive a pair of horny knights. Other topics included in this colorful, addicting album include the fear of aging, post-breakup awkwardness, apathy and longing.
It's impossible to fight the urge to laugh, or at least smile, for the duration of God Shuffled His Feet, and perhaps this is the Dummies' most enduring trait. Not only does Roberts' voice have a Seth Rogen effect, sounding funny regardless of the subject matter, but a degree of buoyancy lurks beneath the surface of every track, making the listener wonder if the band is remotely serious. While singing about death, religion, the fear of aging and social lepers, humor seems the last thing from Crash Test Dummies' minds.
Somehow, that makes them even funnier.
by Marcus David
